The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

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Trade-off: once again less features are built, but what is built has a high level of quality.

Simple Design And Integrating Solutions

Over the course of my engineering career, I’ve read a ton of design books because my personal mission of becoming an engineer was to build things that improve human life.

So I wanted to build products that had an emotional appeal, and people would derive joy and want to use them all the time. Life is already full of stress, the last thing I want to do is cause someone to have a bad day because I built a shitty product.

We don’t build everything, especially if we can find a good off the shelf solution. If we don’t find one, we’ll either build it ourselves, and if its not cost-effective, then we’ll wait until we can afford to build it.

This of course means we’re spending a lot of time doing research, talking to vendors, understanding terms of service, and understanding the long terms implications of the partnership.

Trade-offs: This can stall product development but it's important to know who you’re getting hitched to

I can’t speak for other startup founders but as one who wears both the business and technical hat, I’ve had the freedom to create a company and engineering culture that I’ve grown to love and can be proud of.

I have to give a LOT of credit to my two developers: Alex Notov and David Grieser who pushed me into implementing a lot of processes and have made me a much better femgineer.